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on THE CROSS 



EUROPE'S 



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DIANA 





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PKKSKNTKIJ J5Y 



ON THE CROSS 

OF 

EUROPE'S IMPERIALISM 
ARMENIA CRUCIFIED 



BY 



DIANA AGABEG APCAR 

author of 

"The Great Evil/' "The Peace Problem/' 
"Betrayed Armenia/' Etc. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



YOKOHAMA 
1918 



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^'^.Y 3 I9II 



THE ANGEL OF PEACE SITTETH ON 
THE ROCK OF JUSTICE 



The germ of all Wars lies in Inter- 
national crime. 

International Crime is sown— War is 
reaped. 

As the seed, so the harvest. 



Permanent Peace can only be secured by 
secm'ing Justice for the nations. All 
nations ! Not only for the special 
nations holding reserved seats in the 
Hague Tribunal ; but also for the non- 
special nations to whom the Hague 
Tribunal has closed its doors. 



Justice is like the sun in the heavens : it 
can be seen without the aid of tele- 
scopes. 



FOREWORD 



German Defeat ! To that end Arme- 
nians have contributed tlieir share: 
they have fought suffered and died; 
they are fighting suffering and dying 
still : they cannot do more. 

It is clear now, and has been clear for 
some time, that without the co-opera- 
tion of the United States, Germany could 
not be defeated. It has been clear for a 
longer time that without the co-opera-» 
tion of the United States there can not 
be Stable Peace in Europe. 

Having entered actively into the war, 
and having now put aside or bqen com- 
pelled to put aside the old policy of non-- 
interference in European affairs, shall we 
not hope that the great American peo- 
ple will carry the work to a finish, and 
assume a Protectorate over an Aittono- 
mous Armenia ? 



vi Foreword 

It is the duty of the British people in 
atonement to the Armenians, to aid in 
the work of constituting the United 
States, guardian and protector of 
martyred Armenia, 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Foreword ....... v 

CHAPTER I 

How Russia acts the part of Judas -^ Why 
Autocratic Russia hated the Ar- 
menians .1 

CHAPTER II 

How Germany acts the part of Cain — Why 
Germany decided that the Armenians 
must evacuate their place under the 

SUN TO MAKE RPOM FOR GERMANS— ThE 

Judgment OFvTHE Field OF Blood . . i6 

CHAPTER III 

How THE Armenians are rotated in the 
VORTEX OF European Politics and Sacri- 
ficed on the altars of European Im- 
perialism. 

How THE Armenians become a thorn in the 
side of the oppressor . . . .41 



Yiii Contents 

CHAPTER IV 

PAGE 

How THE Armenians act the part of blind 
Samson . 79 

CHAPTER V 

How AN Autonomous Armenia under Ameri- 
can Protectorate will become the 
Great Divide between rival European 
Imperialisms and lay the foundation 
FOR a Stable Peace , . . .89 



CHAPTER I. 

<* And forthwith he came to Jesus and said, 
Be assured Master ! and kissed him." 

Matther XXVL, 49. 



"Armenians ! After five centuries 

OF A tyrannical YOKE, DURING 

which so many of you have 
succumbed, and when so many 
others have also suffered the 
most terrible outrages, the 
hour of liberty has at last 
sounded for you/' 
** Armenians ! United to your breth- 
ren OF THE SAME BLOOD UNDER THE 
SCEPTRE OF THE TSARS, YOU WILL 
EXPERIENCE AT LAST THE BLESSINGS 

OF Liberty and Justice/' 



2 On the Cross 

Proclamation addressed by the Tsar 
Nicholas II to the Armenian 
population of the caucasus. 
The text of the document was 
read by the viceroy of the 
Caucasus at an assembly of Ar- 
menian NOTABLES, AUGUST 1914. 

QIX months before war was declared 
^ in Europe the Russian Government 
and the Gennan Government entered 
into a secret Convention with the 
Turkish Government for the extermina- 
tion of the Armenians. 

Whether it was the government of 
Rasputin and the Empress notoriously in 
league with Germany, or whether it was 
the government of Autocratic Russia, that 
since the accession of the Tsar Alexander 
III had sought the extermination of the 
Armenians, has not yet been traced, for 



Of Europe's Imperialism 3 

the present, the extent of the knowledge 
ascertained, is, that six months before 
war was declared in Europe, a repre- 
sentative of authority in Russia secretly 
went to Constantinople, and there in 
conjunction with the representative of 
the German Government, secretly entered 
into a Convention with the Yotmg Turk 
Government for the extermination of 
the Armenians. 

As the Armenians had neither been 
consulted nor apprised when this secret 
Russo-Germano-Turco Convention was 
being ratified, the proclamation of the 
Tsar Nicholas II opened out a glorious 
vision before their eyes. It precipitated 
the whole Armenian nation headlong 
into the trap of the betraj^er. 

There was great enthusiasm among 
Armenians abroad. Russia was hailed 
as a deliverer, and volunteers burning to 



4 On the Cross 

strike the stroke of liberation hurried 
breathlessly to the Caucasus to help to 
deliver the Fatherland from the accursed 
Turkish yoke. 

Three and a half years of war in 
Europe have brought forth many revela- 
tions, and among them, one of the most 
important, that Authority in Russia 
joined in the war against Germany not 
for the purpose of fighting German^' but 
in the hope of preventing the down-fall 
of Autocracy in Russia. 

The revelations in the trail of the war 
have disclosed that there were two 
Russias, and that the one Russia was 
warring against the other Russia in 
co-operation with Germany. 

This Russia helped Hindenburg to 
sink whole regiments of Russians in the 
Mazurian swamps. 

This Russia gave up by a series of 



Of Europe's Imperialism 5 

wanton retreats, whole cities, and miles 
upon miles of territory to German}^ 

This Russia sent millions of Russians 

against the German cannons, with the 

express purpose of getting them killed 

5^ off. And this Russia in co-operation 

I with Germany emptied Armenia of 

'^Armenians. 

If the Russian Army had remained in 
Russia, the campaign in Armenia would 
have resulted in a swift and glorious 
success, for then all the Yictories of the 
Armenians would not have been blasted ; 
there would have been no evacuations 
of occupied positions, and no wanton 
retreats, purposely undertaken when 
victory was in the grasp, to prevent 
help from reaching the defenseless Arme- 
nian population. 

The Armenians in Turkish Armenia 
and Asia Minor were defenseless and 



6 On the Cross 

absolutely dependant on help from out- 
side : Russia took care that help should 
not reach them and that the Germans 
and the Turks should have the time and 
opportunity for exterminating them ; 
either outright by massacre, the Turkish 
form of extirpation, or by the deporta- 
tions, the German scientific form of 
extirpation. 

It may be argued why should Russia 
seek to empty Armenia of Armenians ? 
What had Russia with her vast ter- 
ritor3^ her enormous resources, and her 
over-whelming population to fear from 
a few million Armenians ? The answer 
to such an argument (supposed it were 
made) is, that facts are conclusive ; facts 
are stubborn things that stand. It is a 
fact that since the accession of the Tsar 
Alexander III to the throne of the 
Romanoffs, Russia has sought the 



Of Europe's Imperialism 7 

extermination of the Armenians. 

It is a fact that the Tsar Alexander 
III had given assurances of his friend- 
ship to Abdul Haniid. 

It is a fact that Prince Lobanoff the 
Prime Minister of the Tsar Alexander 
III proclaimed that Russia " would 
annex Armenia when there were no 
Armenians left '\ 

It is a fact that after the massacres of 
Abd-ul Hamid had raged for several 
months, Prince LobanofFsaw nothing to 
destroy his confidence in the "bonne 
volonte " of the Sultan " who '* he 
(Prince Lobanoff) " felt assured was 
doing his best ". 

It is a fact that when the massacres 
of 1894/96 were raging, Russians poli- 
ticians spoke of Abd-ul Hamid as **our 
best Ambassador at Constantinople.' ' 

It is a fact that the Russian Govern- 



8 On the Cross 

ment engineered an Armenian Massacre 
in the Caucasus in 1905. 

It is a fact that the Grand Duke 
Nicholas as Viceroy of the Caucasus, 
planned, prepared and organized an 
Armenian Massacre in the Caucasus in 
1917. A pretext for launching the 
massacre was to be found on Easter 
Sunday (our Easter April 1/15) but 
the revolution arrived just in time to 
frustrate this hellish scheme. The Grand 
Duke was called away by the Pro- 
visional Government on the pretence of 
being returned to the post of Commander 
in Chief of the Russian'in army, in reality 
to be consigned to prison ; and the plan 
of the massacre fell through. 

It was curious that the Tsar Alexan- 
der II should have been assassinated 
immediatelj^ after he had granted a Con- 
stitution to the Russian people ; a Con- 



Of Europe's Imperialism 9 

stitution that laid the spade and piekaxe 
at the very foundation of Russian Auto- 
cracy. This Charter of Freedom was 
not a free gift by the Tsar of all the 
Russias to the Russian people ; it had 
been prepared and drafted by the Tsar^s 
Counsellor and Prime Minister ; the 
man, who, at least for one year virtually 
governed Russia with all the power and 
privileges of a dictator, and who, after 
months of laborious endeavour, had 
finally succeeded in inducing the Tsar 
Alexander II to put his signature to the 
document that was to make the Rus- 
sian people free ; and this man was the 
Armenian, Mikhael Loris Meilikh, kno v^rn 
in Russian history as Loris Melkhoff. 

** The greatest work of the century has 
been accomplished : a greater work than 
the liberation of the serfs ". said Mik- 
hael Loris Melikh, the night before the 



10 On the Cross 

day of the fatal assassmation. But the 
soul of Judas was m Russia. The Tsar 
who had signed the document of Hberty 
was assassinated before the document 
could be promulgated, the great states- 
man who had conceived originated and 
drafted that same document was thrown 
out of office and power by the new Tsar, 
and Autocratic Russia went back to 
revel and rejoice in the night of darkness 
savagery and despotism, and to help the 
Turk to destroy the race of that man 
who had dared to bring Russia to 
the portals of the day of light and 
freedom. 

Fear is the parent of Hatred—An 
Armenian had dared to wrench power 
from the grasp of the Tsar of all the 
Russias, and only the extreme measure 
of assassination had saved that power. 
The Armenians thus became a thorn in 



Of Europe's Imperialism 11 

the side of Autocratic Russia. The Tsar 
Alexander III hated the Amenians, and 
all Autocratic Russia hated the Armeni- 
ans. 

Up till 1881 Russia was the friend of 
the Armenians ; an interested friend, but 
yet a friend and not an enemy ; and the 
only friend among what are called the 
" Powers of Europe '^ for England and 
France with their loud sounding pro- 
clamations, glorifying themselves as the 
Apostles of Liberty and Justice, had 
nevertheless supported and did support 
the bloodiest and the most bestial 
t3a'anny that ever the world had 
known ; and but for British and French 
support, Turkish dominance over Chri- 
stian peoples would have become a 
thing of the past about a hundred years 



ago. 



It was this friendship of a Christian 



12 On the Cross 

Power wliich had enlisted tlie Armenians 
in Russia's favour against Persia in 
1828, and gained for Russia all that 
portion of Armenia which passed under 
Russian dominance at that period. The 
Empress Catherine dangled autonomy 
before the eyes of the Arjnenian Catho- 
licos, but once the territories occupied, 
Armenian Autonomy rusted on the 
shel ves of Russian Imperialism . 

No doubt the exigencies of Russian 
Imperialism required that Russia should 
frown on all Moslem oppression of Chris- 
tians ; however the Armenians in their 
cruel position, a Christian people, sur- 
rounded and overpowered by Moslem 
hordes, were sincerely grateful for the 
Russian friendship. 

But the Tsar Alexander II having 
been assassinated, that document of 
freedom which the Armenian Mikhael 



Of Europe's Imperialism 13 

Loris Melikh had drafted and induced 
the Tsar to sign, now became under the 
new regime, the death warrant of the 
Armenians. 

The Tsar Alexander III inagurated 
the Russian policy of seeking the des- 
truction of the Armenians. From this 
period Russian Autocracy entered into a 
compact with Turkish savagery. Young 
Armenian revolutionaries fighting in 
their mountain passes against whole 
regiments of Turkish soldiers, and escap- 
ing across the frontier into Russian 
Armenia were immediately seized by the 
Russian authorities and consigned to 
the dungeons of hell. I have seen one of 
these men who was consigned for fifteen 
5"ears to a Russian prison in Saghalien. 
He was a native of Karine (Turkish 
name Erzeroom) fighting in the mountain 
passes with a score or so of companions 



14 On the Cross 

armed with old muskets and matchlocks, 
against Turkish regiments equipped with 
rifles that kill at a thousand yards, 
they, hard pressed, unfortunately crossed 
the frontier. In this company was 
Ephrem Davidian, that great military 
genius who fought the forces of the ex- 
Shah of Persia and established Constitu- 
tional Government in Persia, which 
Russia and Britain did not allow to 
take root and prosper. Ephrem who 
was also consigned to the same Russian 
prison as my friend Miiias, contrived to 
escape after a year ; but Minas abode in 
that Russian hell for fifteen j^ears, and 
was at last able to make his escape 
during the Russo-Japanese war. The 
mark of the iron was on the ankles of 
Minas ; the best fifteen j^ears of his life 
had been doomed to a prison cell so 
infested with vermin that the lice swarm- 



Of Europe's Imperialism 15 

ed over the faces of the prisoners, and 
where the victims of Russian barbarism 
were flogged until the blood flowed in 
streams from their wounds. 

With the acession of the Tsar Alex- 
ander III German influence began to 
grow in Russia, a colony of German 
White Ants began to spread and Dry 
Rot was instituted in the foundation of 
Russia by German spies and German 
Government agents. 

It was curious how in betraying the 
Armenians to crucifixion, Judas Russia 
was at the same time preparing the 
rope for hanging herself. 



CHAPTER IT. 

** And the Lord God said unto Cain, where is 
Abel thy brother ? And he said, 1 know 
not : Am I my brother's keeper ? " 

*' And God said, What hast thou done ? the 
voice of thy brother's blood crieth aloud 
unto me from the earth." 

Genesis 7F., 9—10 

T^HE responsibility for every Turkish 
-*- itjassacre of Christians for nearly a 
hundred years can be traced either direct- 
ly or indirectly to some European Power. 
But none of the Christian peoples under 
Turkish dominance have suffered what 
the Armenians have suffered. There have 
never been massacres in the world, at 
any time, in any period of history, in the 
darkest and most brutal ages ; like the 
Armenian Massacres. 



Of Europe's Imperialism 17 

The question must be asked— Why 
have the Armenians been massacred ? 

Armenians had lived under Turkish 
domination for centuries ; certainly under 
great wrongs and oppressions ; but yet 
they had lived. General Sir Frederick 
Williams reported in 1855 of the Arme- 
nian provinces ** Suffering in every in- 
terest of daily life under the most system- 
atic and horrible oppressions *' but let us 
not forget that England and France 
fought to maintain the government that 
jyerpetrated those oppressions. 

For centuries the lazy Turk lived in idle- 
ness and did eat of the toil of the Arme- 
nians, but it was under the benign tole- 
rance and with the benevolent assistance 
of Christian Governments that he began 
eating up Armenians wholesale. 

It is estimated that there were about 
five million Armenians under Turkish 



18 On the Cross 

domination in the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century. It is also estimated that 
in 1878, when by the BerHn Congress 
and the Treaty of Berlin, the Armenian 
Question came into dangerous promi- 
nence, there were more than four million 
Armenians under Turkish dominance ; 
and the bulk of this four millions, was a 
stolid, sturdy, laborious peasantr}^ the 
backbone of the nation. 

One of the excuses brought forward in 
extenuation of Turkish atrocities by 
writers of civilized Christendom, is, that 
the Armenians are usurers, and did 
thereby excite the hatred of the Turks. 

It is a world known fact that the 
peasantry are not the class from which 
usurers come ; and it is a fact that at 
least ninety per cent of the Armenians 
under Turkish domination, were peas- 
ants. It is also a fact that the religious, 



Of Europe^s Imperialism 19 

educational and medical professions were 
well represented in the balance of the ten 
per cent of the Armenians who were not 
peasants, and it is a fact that usurers are 
not recruited from this class. There 
would thus remain only about five or six 
per cent of the Armenians who could be 
included in the class from which usurers 
might be recruited, that is the merchant 
and banker class. But it is an ab- 
solute fact that usurers are found in all 
countries and in all nations, and all these 
writers of civilized Christendom who 
have excused and condoned Turkish mas- 
sacres of Armenians on that ground, 
would not excuse or condone atrocities 
of a like nature, if perpetrated in their 
own countries and on their own peoples. 

Let us keep to Facts. 

Abd-ul Hamid massacred about five 
hundred thousand Armenians in the years. 



20 On the Cross 

1894/96. These massacres passed un- 
heeded in Europe. # 

Lord Salivsbury as British premier an- 
nounced that ^* England could not land 
British ships on the Taurus to save the 
Armenians.'* 

Prince Lobanoff the Russian Premier 
expressed his confidence " in the bonne 
Yolont^ of the Sultan.** 

And the Kaiser said **Tlie Sultan 
should be allowed to do with his subjects 
as he liked.** 

France was servile ; and the United 
States would not interfere in the " Affairs 
of Europe.'* 

Millions were paid out of the Turkish 
Treasury in bribes to certain European 
newspapers during that period of time 
1894/96 ; and the opinion was expressed 
that any interference on behalf of the Ar- 
menians would involve Europe into war. 



Of Europe^s Imperialism 21 

Let us pause and reflect on this re- 
markable statement. 

Any interference on tlie part of the 
powers of Europe to save a Christian 
people from extermination on the soil of 
its own country by a Moslem usurper ; 
would result in war between these 
Christian States!!!! 

Surely there must have been something 
not only ** rotten '* but very rotten in 
Christendom. 

The massacre of the Young Turk Gov- 
ernment followed in 1909. With the aid 
of the Armenian revolutionaiies Con- 
stitutional Government was established 
in the Turkish Empire in July 1908 : the 
plan of the coup d^etat which accom- 
plished what the British and French 
press lauded as a " bloodless revolution *' 
emanated from tlie head of the Armenian, 
Odian, but the Young Turks posing be- 



22 On the Cross 

fore the world as the votaries of '* Liber- 
ty ! Equality ! Fraternity ! " rewarded 
the Armenians for their services by the 
hideous massacres in Cilicia (Lesser 
Armenia) April 1909 when about sixty 
three thousand Armenians were mas- 
sacred, their worldly possessions looted, 
and the whole province of Ciiicia des- 
olated. Sixty three thousand was the 
number fixed by Mr. E. G. Fryer who 
had been through that massacre. Mr. 
Fryer's hair had turned snow white from 
the horrors. ** I could not get my report 
into the newspapers ^^ he said to me. 

At this time United Christendom con- 
doned the horror, and decreed that the 
** incident ^' should be forgotten. In the 
New York World Almanac the ** in- 
cident '^ was recorded by one line " Anti- 
Christian riots at Adana.'' In Whitakei'S 
Almanac the ** incident" could not find 



Of Europe's Imperialism 23 

space for one single word and no men- 
tion whatever was made in the Al- 
manac's colmnns ** Events of the Year/' 
The massacres in Cilicia revealed the 
fearful character of the ruffians calling 
themselves " Young Turks " but as the 
** Great Powers" had "resolved that 
for the peace of Europe the Ottoman 
Empire must stand " the ruffians (Old 
and Young) remained the ** gentlemanly 
Turk " in the estimation of powerful 
Christendom, and consequently it was 

natural that these ruffians should con- 

t 

tinue to indulge in their favourite pastime 
of murdering and plundering the Christ- 
ians that were not powerful. 

As I am writing these pages, I have 
been reading " The Red Rugs of Tarsus " 
by Helen Davenport Gibbons. 

Find a woman for writing the truth 
on a tabooed subject. It is one of the 



24 On the Cross 

reasons why the world needs woman's 
suffrage. If woman's suffrage were es- 
tablished in all the eountries of Europe, 
wars would cease, because International 
Crimes would also cease. 

The Foreign Offices of Europe are the 
Devirs workshops. When the women of 
Europe have the vote, a vital blow will 
be struck at the DeviPs trade. 

A few quotations would not be amiss 
from thie letters written by Helen Daven- 
port Gibbons in 1909 which comprise 
the book now published under the title 
of ** Ked Rugs of Tarsus.'' 

** Mersina, April twenty-ninth » 

** I wrote to you of the landing of the 
Turkish regiments from Beirut on the 
day we learned of Abd-ul Hamid's 
deposition. They went to Adana the 
same day and started that night a second 
massacre more terrible than the first. 



Of Europe's Imperialism 25 

The Armenians had given up their arms. 
On the advice of the foreign naval officers- 
trusting in the warships here at Mersina, 
they accepted the assurance of the Gov- 
ernment that the "rioting" was over. 
So they were defenseless when the Young 
Turk regiments came. The butchery 
was easier. I spare you details, I wish 
to God I could have spared them to m^"- 
self. . Most of our Ad ana friends who es- 
caped the first massacre must have been 
killed since last Saturday. The few who 
have reached Mersina are like the mes- 
sengers that came to Job. Adana is still 
hell." 

*' At the station, soldiers are turning 
back the Armenians who have managed 
to slip into trains at Adana and Tarsus. 
From a long distance one can see, when 
riding in the train, the warships in the 
harbor, flying the flags of the ** protect- 



26 On the Cross 

Ing '* powers, whose obhgation to make 
secure life and liberty for Armenians was 
solemnly entered into by the Treaty of 
Berlin. One does not expect much of 
Russia : the treaty was imposed upon 
her. But England, France, German^^ 
Austria, Italy — they all have warships at 
Mersina. Armenian refugees fleeing from 
the massacre at Adana, which occured 
right under the nose of the English, 
French, Germans, Austrians and Italians, 
see these warships as the train draws 
into Mersina station. Turkish soldiers, 
of the same regiments who massacred 
them three days ago, bar the wa}^ Back 
they must go to death.' ^ 

** As I write these things — a few weeks 
ago I should have called them incredible 
things — I see from my window the half- 
moon of warships a mile out to sea. They 
ride quietly at anchor. Launches are all 



Of Europe's Imperialism 27 

the time plying to and fro between ships 
and shore. That is the extent of their 
activitj^'' 

** May twenty-seventh, 
** We see too — oh, so clearly how heart- 
less and cynical the diplomats of Em^ope 
are. They are the cause, as much as the 
Turks, of the massacres. Not the foreign 
policy of Russia or Germany alone. As far 
as the Near East goes, the Great Powers 
are equally guilty. No distinction can 
be drawn between them. In England, 
in Germany and in France, people do not 
care— because these horrible things are 
done so far away. They are indiffer- 
ent to their own solemn treaty obliga- 
tions. They are ignorant of the cruelty 
and wickedness of the selfish policy' 
pursued by the men to whom they 
entrust their foreign affairs. I see blood 
when I think of what is called \ Eu- 



28 On the Cross 

ropean Diplomacy ' for blood is there, 
blood shed before your ejxs/^ 

As I finish reading ** The Red Rugs of 
Tarsus'* I sa3^— Helen Davenport Gib- 
bons, you ought to have i)ublished j^our 
book in 1909, and not have waited 
till 1917.- 

When Tamerlane invaded that beauti- 
ful province of Armenia called ** The 
Pearl '* little children threw flowers in 
the path of the conqueror and he crushed 
them under the hoofs of his horse. But 
how many hundred thousand Armenian 
children have been crushed under the 
hoofs of Europe's Imi^erialism ? ? ? 

I can recall what Mr. E. G. Fryer said 
to me in 1914 before the war ** There 
will be massacres again ; and they will 
be worse tlian ever." 

What is the ar'gument that can be 
deduced in order to justify such a prcdic- 



Of Europe's Imperialism 29 

tion ? — The Turk is a species of human 
wolf, a species of human hyena — his his- 
tory proves this ; it is to be expected 
that he shd|ild indulge in his natural 
instincts and give the reins to his 
natural appetites, when some of the 
powerful GoYcrments of Europe support 
him, and others co-operate with him. 

Mr. Frj^er had also seen the extent of 
the activity of the warships in Mersina 
harbour ; he had control of the tele- 
grapliic service for three days of hell, his 
hair had grown white ; he could not get 
his account of the massacres into the 
papers ; he knew as others knew, how 
the massacres of 1909 were condoned by 
the six signatories to the Treaty of 
Berlin. It is no wonder that he predict- 
ed future massacres. 

I am an Armenian, and during these 
three and a half years of war, as I have 



30 On the Cross 

read continuously in British and French 
papers, declamations over ** A Scrap of 
Paper " and fiery denunciations against 
" German Atrocities in j^elgium *' I 
have felt that the devils in hell must be 
splitting their sides with laughter. For 
has not every Treaty in Europe been ** A 
Scrap of Paper ^' ? and have not Eng- 
land and France supported the Turk ? 
and is not supporting the Turk also 
supporting Turkish atrocities ? and have 
not Turkish atrocities perpetrated upon 
defenseless Armenians, been infinitely 
greater and infinitely worse than Gennan 
atrocities in Belgium ? 

The geographical position of Belgium, 
as a buffer state between Germany, and 
England and France, requires, in the 
interests of the two allied countries, that 
German atrocities in Belgium should be 
shrieked to the ends of the earth. 



Of Europe's Imperialism 31 

The geographical position of Armenia, 
a bone of contention between rival Eu^ 
ropean Imperialisms, required, in the 
interests of the *' Great Powers'^ that 
Turkish atrocities should be condoned 
and forgotten. 

Who asked England to interfere in 
1878 ? If British ships could not be 
landed on the Taurus in 1895 ? If they 
could do nothing else excej^t ride quietly 
at anchor in Mersina harbour in 1909 ? 
If they could not land two hundred or 
three hundred thousand British soldiers 
at Alexandretta or any other Asia Minor 
port in 1914 ? Then no more should 
British ships have steamed into the 
Bosphorous in 1878. 

The worst that could have befallen 
the Armenians in 1878 would have been 
a Russian occupation of Armenia : it is 
true Autocratic Russia would have op- 



32 On the Cross 

pressed the Armenians ; but then, only 
to the hmit of oppression, exercised over 
the Poles and over the Russian people ; 
but Armenians being no longer under 
Turkish domination, Autocratic Russia 
could not have utilized the Turkish 
wolves for their extermination. No ! not 
Autocratic Germany either. 

The dough of European diplomacy in 
the Near East has been kneaded with 
the blood of innocents. 

To the people of Britain and France 
we will sa3\ — We have nothing to do with 
your internal affairs— j^our governments 
may be based on freedom and justice in 
your home countries, but that does not 
benefit us. Your foreign police' was left 
in the hands of cynical conscienceless 
unscrupulous politicians and diplomats 
who did not care to what extent other 
peoples were made to suffer in the fur- 



Of Europe's Imperialism 33 

therance of their imperialistic designs 
and aims. Your newspapers painted 
black, white ; called evil, good ; and 
darkness, light ; and you did not care, 
because you were not bearing the trib- 
ulation and the anguish. 

It is true your countries have tiot 
actually co-operated in the murders of 
our people as Russia and Germany have 
I done ; but you have supported the 
murderer. You are responsible, and you 
cannot shirk your responsibility before 
God.----" 

Germany was seeking for a German 
place under the sun, and Germany 
decided that the Armenians should eva- 
cuate their place under the sun to make 
room for Germans. 

The Armenian merchant and banker 
class controlled and directed the trade 
and commerce of the Turkish Empire ; 



34 On the Cross 

Germany desired that this trade and 
commerce should be controlled by Ger- 
mans. 

Germany desired that all the rich 
lands of Armenia, Asia Minor and Meso- 
potamia should be exploited by Ger- 
mans. 

Armenia was essentially a sheep breed- 
ing countr3% 

**In winter the hills with snow 
are white 
In summer the hills with sheep 
are white." 

Was a popular saj'ing in an Ar- 
menia of the past. Feeding on the rich 
pastures cattle increased and multiplied, 
particularly sheep, and although under 
the blighting oppression of the Turk, 
yet Armenia exported in the beginning 
of the nineteenth centurj^ one and a half 
million sheep annually to Constantino- 



Of Europe's Imperialism 35 

pie. Large ntimbei*s were also exported 
annually to Persia and Arabia. 

If the Armenians were extermina- 
ted ? Germany's, mutton, fat, butter, 
cheese, skin, horn and wool supply would 
come from Armenia. 

Fruit of the finest and most excellent 
flavour could be cultivated in Armenia 
and Asia Minor. If the Armenians were 
exterminated ? Germany would control 
a magnificent supply of the best fruit in 
the world. 

The vineyards of Armenia and Asia 
Minor could supply a vintage unexcelled 
in the world. If the Armenians were 
exterminated ? German^' would mono- 
polise that vintage. 

Wheat and other cereals could be 
harvested abundanth^ If the Armenians 
were exterminated ? Germany would 
control that cereal supply. 



36 On the Cross 

Roses could be cultivated in Armenia 
and Asia Minor to equal the Bulgarian 
cultivation, if not to surpass it. If the 
Armenians were exterminated ? Ger- 
many would control that rose industry. 

The waters of Lake Van are heavily 
charged with borax. lithe Armenians 
were exterminated ? Germ an \^ would 
command a richer supply of borax than 
the United States obtains from Borax 
Lake in California. 

Silkworms feeding on the leaves of the 
mulberry trees that grow in Asia Minor 
produce a silk of finest texture. If the 
Armenians were exterminated ? Ger- 
many would control a market for excel- 
lent texture silk. 

There are vsilver, copper, and lead 
mines in Armenia and Asia Minor with 
their hidden wealth as yet unexploited. 
If the industrious, wealth producing 



Of 



Of Europe's Imperialism 

element in the Ttirkisli Empire were 
exterminated ? Germany would be en- 
riched with the hidden wealth of those 
mines. 

The climate of Armenia and Asia 
Minor is especially suitable for the 
colonization of the white man. If the 
Armenians were exteminated ? Germans 
would colonize Armenia and Asia 
Minor. 

As an Armenian I must devoutly wish 
that God may colonize hell with Ger- 
mans. 

The wife of the German consul at 
Kharberd, Frau Ehman, gave true ex- 
pression to German feeling and sentiment 
when she comforted certain Armenian 
women for the plunder and loss of their 
homes, for the murder of their husbands 
and children and relatives, by telling 
them. — 



38 On the Cross 

*^ Sixty million Germans cooped up in 
Germany : why should two million Ar- 
menians be allowed to spread themselves 
over this beautiful country ? German 
children cry for one walnut ; whilst 
Armenian children gorge themselves with 
walnuts and all kinds of fruit ! '^ 

Herr Ehmann, the German Consul at 
Kharberd, and husband of the worthj^ 
Frau, who first vccnt to Kharberd as a 
missionary-, and later was promoted to 
the r^mk of Consul hy his government, 
himself sent two thousand children that 
he had collected in an extemporised 
orphanage to have their heads chopped 
oflf; the children were dressed in one 
vshirt eacli taken to a hill near by and 
pole-axed. 

When Cain had murdered Abel, his 
hands red with his bi'other's blood, he 
answered in his anxiety to conceal his 



Of Europe's Imperialism 39 

crime, ^* Am I my brother's keeper ?'' 

When the massacres of 1915 were 
raging the German Ambassador to Con- 
stantinople, said, ^* We are very sorry 
but we cannot interfere in the internal 
affairs of Turkey '^ and Count Reventlow 
as the mouthpiece of his Imperial Master 
proclaimed that ** the riotous blood- 
thirsty Armenians " deserved to be ex- 
terminated. 

But in the turmoil of this life there 
is only one thing that is certain and 
sure ; and the thing that is certain and 
sure, is, that God's laws are eternal and 
changeless. Now, by those eternal and 
changeless laws the jprize for which the 
German Cain murdered the Armenian 
Abel can never become a German pos- 
session. Even ^o, by those eternal and 
changeless laws, the curse of Cain must 
reach Germany. " The voice of thy 



40 On the Cross 

brother's blood crieth aloud unto me 
from the earth.' ^ 

A3' ! not only the blood, but the bones 
from which dogs and vultures have 
eaten the flesh, are now cr3'ing unto 
God. It is a long long cr3^ and no 
earthly- power can still it. 

To the German people we can say 
^' Masked Murderers ! Your aim is 
defeated ! The Armcnic\n nation is not 
killed out. It lives. Armenia has peo- 
pled the city^ of God with saints and 
angels, therefore God w411 once more 
people Armenia with Armenians. But 
look to yourselves ! A nation w4tli the 
mark of Cain upon its forehead. 



CHAPTER III. 

^*EVEN MORE DEGRADING, AND MORE 
TERRIBLE IN ITS CONSEQUENCES, IS 
THE UNBLUSHING SELFISHNESS OF 

THE GREATEST CIVILIZED NATIONS. 

I* 

While boasting oe their mili- 
tary POWER, AND loudly PRO- 
CLAIMING THEIR Christianity, not 

ONE OE THEM HAS RAISED A EINGER 
TO SAVE A ChRISTLVN PEOPLE, THE 
REMNANT OE AN ANCIENT CIVILIZA- 
TION, FROM THE MOST BARBAR- 
OUS PERSECUTION, TORTURE, AND 
WHOLESALE MASSACRE. A HUNDRED 

THOUSAND Armenians murdered or 

STARVED TO DEATH WHILE THE 
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GREAT 
POWERS COLDLY LOOKED ON— AND 
PRIDED THEMSELVES ON THEIR UNA- 



42 On the Cross 

NIMITY IN ALL MAKING IHE SAME 
USELESS PROTESTS—WILL SURELY BE 
REFERRED TO BY THE HISTORIAN OF 
THE FUTURE AS THE MOST DETEST- 
ABLE COMBINATION OF HYPOCRISY 
AND INHUMANITY THAT THE WORLD 
HAS YET PRODUCED, AND AS THE 
CROWNING PROOF OF THE UTTER 
ROTTENNESS OF THE BOASTED 
CIVILIZATION OF THE NINETEENTH 
CENTURY." 

" T/ii Wonderful Century "— 
Chapter XXIV p. 503/504. 

Professor Alfred Russell Wallace. 

TPHE Germano-Turco Government have 
explained that the Armenian Mas- 
sacres and Deportations (a scientific 
form of massacre) were a '* military 
necessity,'* just as the German Govern- 
ment has explained that the invasion of 



Of Kurope's Imperialism 43 

Bclgimn was a '* military necessity." 
Ample elucidation and enlightenment 
have been given to the civilised world by 
Belgium's friends why the Invasion of 
Belgium was a ** military necessity," but 
Armenians having no friends in the sense 
that Belgians have, no elucidation and 
enlightenment have been given to the 
civilised world as to why the Armenian 
horrors became a " military necessit}^" 

In all what are called civilized couu-- 
tries, a shigle case of murder calls for 
investigation. It does not suffice to 
know ,wlio committed the murder, but a 
full and complete investigation, is, in 
every case, required by Society as to the 
means or methods employed for the per- 
petration of the foul deed and the causes 
or reasons for which the crime was 
committed. Society also would require 
to know who were the accomplice or 



44 On the Cross 

accomplices connected with the principal 
or principals ; and the nature of the 
facilities either granted to, or availed by 
the murderer or murderers which made 
it possible for the crime to be perpetrat- 
ed. Therefore a crime against humanity 
of such appalling magnitude as the 
Armenian Massacres, calls for investiga- 
tion before a World's Tribunal, and no 
country asserting to be civilized could 
refuse to join in this work of inves- 
tigation. 

It is not enough for us to know in a 
general way, as we do know, that 
powerful Christendom launched the 
swine-wolves of Turkestan on the mas- 
sacre path, and that once fairly launch- 
ed, the wolf-pack began running down • 
that fearful path, and only the hand of 
God can restrain them. 

It is not enough for us to know that 



Of Europe's Imperialism 45 

Germany organized the massacres of 
1915 in order to exterminate the 
race with whose blood she, had pre- 
sumably purchased a German Empire 
in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia in 
1895. 

We require to know moi'e,— and thus it 
becomes necessary to detail a few facts 
in chronological order. 

Battle royal in Constantinople 1875/76 
between the Russian Ambassador General 
Ignatieff and the British Ambassador 
Sir Henry Elliot, led to the Bulgarian 
massacres. The Turkish mind haying 
become exhilarated by the ardent British 
friendship forthwith the Turkish gov- 
ernment began massacring Bulgarians ; 
and the Bulgarian massacres led to the 
Russo-Turkish war. 

Beginning with the Russo-Turkish 
war, circumstance after circumstance 



4G On the Cross 

singled out the Armenians as a target for 
Turkish hatred and distrust. 

The Russo-Turkish war began when 
Abd-ul Hamid 11 of Armenian massacre 
fame had newl^^ ascended the throne. In 
the first flush of his accession to that 
coveted pinnacle he had to taste the bit- 
terness of disaster and defeat inflicted 
by men of Armenian race, for the most 
successful and decisive victories in this 
war were won by Armenian generals in 
the Russian army, and Abd-ul Hamid 
knew whose military genius it was that 
struck the blows. 

The Impregnable fortress of Kars was 
stormed and taken by the Armenian 
general, Mikhael Loris Melikh ; and by 
the decisive victories gained by generals 
of Armenian race the Turk was brought 
down to his knees and annihilation 
awaited him. So hard pressed were the 



Of Europe's Imperialism 47 

Turks, that they offered the Armenians 
autonomy on the high plateau of Turkish 
Armenia ; but at this critical juncture the 
British fleet hurried to the Bosphorous 
to rescue the Turk from annihilation, and 
Great Britain declared her readiness to 
fight for the Sultan against the Tsar. 

" It was with great difficulty that the 
Sultan was dissuaded from abandoning 
Constantinople and retiring to Brous- 
sa. But for the arrival of the British 
Fleet he would probably have gone 
and the Russians would have occupied 
the city," writes Dr. George Washburn at 
that time President of Robert College in 
Constantinople, in his book ** Fifty Years 
in Constantinople." 

The Treaty of San Stefano was made 
null and void and the Russian army 
compelled to evacuate Armenia ; and by 
the Treaty of Berlin, Armenia, Asia 



48 ' On the Cross 

Minor and Macedonia were handed back 
to the Turk, or let me better express it, 
kicked back into the Turkish hell. To 
any one who has any knowledge of 
Turkish character one opinion will be 
unquestionably accepted, and that is, 
after defeat and disaster having been in- 
flicted on the Turkish arms by generals 
in the Russian army who were men of 
Armenian race, Armenia should not have 
been handed back to Turkish dominance, 
and Armenians should not have been left 
(where they were left by the Treaty of 
Berlin) in the jaws of the Turkish hyena, 
who could thus wreak his vengeance on 
them. 

The delegation sent by the despairing 
Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople 
to the Berlin Congress to plead the cause 
of his people ; and the insertion of Article 
61 in the Berlin TreatN^, worked evil 



Of Europe's Imperialism 49 

instead of good ; since the Armenians 
being left absolutely in the power of the 
Turk, this demonstration aggravated 
and accentuated Turkish hatred and dis™ 
trust towards them. The Patriarch was 
assassinated by the Turkish government. 

The Armenians on their part have also 
been guilty since 1878 onwards of two 
gigantic errors. They have trusted and 
hoped in *^ Christian Governments ".^ The 
denseness of the Armenian mind in this 
connection has been amazing. Ai'menians 
have been accredited with native shrewd- 
ness but certainly no joeople could have 
proved more astonishingly stupid than 
they have proved themselves on this 
particular point. 

The other gigantic error of which the 
Armenians have been guilt3% is, that the 
nation as a whole did not support the 
Armenian revolutionaries : they were the 



50 On tlie Cross 

exalted ones, the heroes of the nation, 
but when hath a prophet found honour 
among his own ? 

The Armenian monej^ed class were 
concerned about their banking account ; 
revolutions are inimical to vested in- 
terests. Others were obssessed w^ith the 
crass idea that the x^atriotism of the 
revolutionaries was a mad fever, the 
spread of which w^ould prove disastrous 
to the nation. 

Numbers living in far distant countries 
were deprived of the opportunity^ of 
coming into touch with the nation^ s 
heroes and aiding their efforts ; thus the 
revolutionar3^ spirit w^as left to struggle 
unaided ; and writers of civilized Chris- 
tendom who excused and condoned the 
Turkish atrocities, also made it their 
business to condemn the Armenian re- 
volutionaries. 



Of Europe's Imperialism 51 

At the Congress of Berlin Bismarck 
officiated as ** an honest broker " and 
Germany entered into the arena. Ger- 
many became henceforth self appointed 
arbiter of the destiny of the Armenian 
nation. 

*^ With one million Tm'kish pounds ; 
we should be able to shut the mouth of 
Bismarck " was Abd-dul Hamid^s con- 
fidential communication to his henchman 
Savfet Pasha ; and so in 1883 Bismarck 
gave the fiat to Great Britain's paper 
proposals for ameliorating the condition 
of the Armenians by Great Britain's pet 
theory ol introducing '* Turkish Re- 
forms " in Armenia. 

*' Germany cared nothing about the 
matter, and it had better be allowed to 
drop " was Bismarck's repl^^ to the 
British Foreign Office. 

Imperial Germany had already by 



52 On the CroSvS 

that time decided that the ground which 
Russia and England had been contesting 
for nearly a century should belong to 
Germany and a German Empire flung 
from the Fatherland to the Persian 
Gulf. 

When British politicians and diplo- 
mats were sacrificing the Armenians to 
the imaginary interests of British Im- 
perialism they did not foresee that 
some day the Devil would raise up 
German^'. Such is the dimness and 
shortsightedness of human vision ! 
What the human mind often considers 
a great achievement contains in reality 
the germ of a great disaster. British 
Imperialism hailed the Berlin Treaty as 
a crushing victor^^ over Russian Im- 
perialism. But it was at the Congress 
of Berlin that the Devil pronounced his 
licnediction on the German helmet, and 



Of Europe* s Imperialism 53 

it was dating from the Congress of 
Berlin that Germany began taking 
instructions from the Devil how to plant 
a German Empire in Asia Minor. 

Just as the Constitution of Mikhael 
Loris Melikh made the Armenians a 
thorn in the side of Autocratic Russia, 
so also the famous Constitution of 
Midhat Pasha made the Armenians a 
thorn in the side of Abd-ul Hamid. 
Writers of civilized Christendom in their 
anxiety to present to the world a liberal 
minded Turk boosted up Midhat Pasha, 
but Abd-ul Hamid knew better; he 
knew that such a document could not 
emanate from the brain of a Turk, and 
he knew the men thanks to whose brains 
Midhat was reaping fame. The Con- 
stitution of Midhat was the work of 
two Armenian statesmen Odian and 
Servicen. Just as in Russia the extreme 



54 On the Cross 

measure of assassination became neces- 
sary to save the fall of despotism, so 
also in what has been called the ** Otto- 
man Empire/' assassination became 
necessary. Midhat was assassinated, 
and later (with the co-operation of 
Russia and Germany) five hundred 
thousand Armenians were assassinated, 
and their w^orldly possessions given over 
to Moslem loot. 

Christendom was at this period bus^^ 
in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ 
to Hindoos and Burmese, and Chinese 
and Africans, and had not the time to 
think of Christians nineteen hundred 
years old. 

The situation was intensified by the 
drama enacted in Egypt. Here again 
the act of another of Armenia's gifted 
sons became the undoing of his own 
race* The Armenian, Nubar ''Father 



Of Europe's Imperialism 55 

of the fellaheen and the Father of 
Justice " by a master stroke of diplo- 
macy pulled out Egypt as it were from 
under Turkish suzerainty and threw 
that country into the lap of England. 
Strange irony of Fate! The fellaheen 
lived, the Armenian died. The fellaheen 
received justice ; the Armenians in their 
demand for justice received crucifixion. 

The Kaiser, Arch Duke Franz Ferdi- 
nand and Cardinal Merry del Yal formed 
a Triple Alliance. A Serbian lad, his 
mind inflamed against the Imperial 
robber seeking to usurp his country 
and to crush out his nationality, 
fired the shot which furnished the pre- 
text for Germany to seize the long 
waited for opportunity ; and in August 
1914 Germany started war in Europe. 

Simultaneously the British Govern- 
ment guaranteed the integrity and 



56 On the Cross 

independence of the '^ Ottoman Empire " 
hi time of war and in time of peace if 
** Turkey " remained neutral. 

In this guarantee Russia and France 
acquiesced ; although the Tsar had 
already issued a proclamation to his 
^'beloved Armenians" announcing to 
them that after five centuries of a 
tyrannical yoke, the hour of liberty had 
at last sounded for them. 

Notwithstanding, however, this power- 
ful guarantee, the Turkish Government 
immediately began *^ mobilising." This 
** mobilising" meant domiciliary searches 
in all Armenian houses in Turkish 
Armenia and Asia Minor ; robbing the 
Armenians of their worldly possessions, 
that is, such possessions as had not 
already been robbed, and 'hounding the 
men into the barracks whilst the harvest 
stood unrcaped in the fields. 



Of Europe's Imperialism 57 

When the work of robbery had been 
completed, and all Armenian men of 
military age enrolled into the Turkish 
army ; the two German battleships 
Goebeti and Bleslau fired upon Russian 
ports in the Black Sea, and war was 
declared between Russia and the Turk 
in the month of November 1914. 

Immediately followed the invasion of 
Trans-Caucasia by the Germano-Turco 
forces, w^ho were joined and assisted by 
the Moslems in all that border country, 
and it is a fact that but for the stubborn 
resistance of the Armenians the Ger- 
mano-Turco forces would have swept 
over Trans-Caucasia and Russian Arme- 
nia and even reached Tiflis. As it was, 
the Germano-Turco forces were defeated 
and driven from all that region. 

The battle of Sara-Kamisch which the 
British press boomed as an enormous 



58 On the Cross 

Russian success, was absolutely won by 
the courage and determination of the 
Armenian soldiers in the Russian annyj 
and b3^ the military genius of Arshak 
Cavtarian (familiarly known as Keri) 
whose gallant life was lost in the battle 
of Revandouz where he inflicted another 
heavy defeat on the Turks and saved 
the situation. But for Keri and the 
Armenian soldiers, the battle of Sara- 
Kamisch would have been lost, and the 
Turkish army would have reached 
Tiflis. 

** If ovu* Armenians had been with us, 
wc would have defeated the Russians 
long ago/' 

Was found written in a Turkish officer's 
note book. 

But how strenuously have writers 
of civilized Christendom through decade 
after decade of Armenian agony, de- 



Of Europe's Impenalism 59 

picted the Armenians as a race of 
cowards who lie down and get their 
throats cut by the Turk. 

For two years, 1913 and 1914, the 
Russian army had been encamped in 
Persian Armenia ; the country that 
European and American newspapers 
ignorantly and erroneously term ** North 
Western Persia " but which is in reality 
part of the ancient kingdom of Armenia. 
The whole of this particular province of 
ancient Armenia, although nominally 
under Persian sovereignty, had for the 
two years 1913 and 1914 become 
virtually a Russian possession. The 
Russian army had come and encamped 
in the countr^^, and, as everybody 
thought and believed, had come to stay. 

Suddenly on the second of January, 
1915, it became known that the entire 
Russian army, Con^ilate and all, were 



60 On the Cross 

withdrawing from Persian Armenia ; 
the unarmed Christian population, com- 
prised of Armenians, the true sons of the 
soil, and some thousands of Assyrians, 
saw their fate before their eyes. 

In Persian Armenia, in the month of 
January, the snow that Ues on the ground 
has to be measured by j^ards and not by 
feet. Raih'oads or other means of con- 
veyance do not exist : so the Christian 
population had to face either massacre 
or flight over the snows, a journey from 
some i)laces of nine or ten days march 
(when the marchers include women and 
children) to the frontiers of Russian 
Armenia. And this was exactly what 
happened. The Turkish army entered 
into Persian Armenia, left entirely de- 
fenceless to the enemy's invasion. In the 
words of a correspondent from whose 
account of the fiorrors I will quote just 



Of Europe's Imperialism 61 

a few lines — ^* The Kurds poured in from 
every quarter and Persian brigands 
joined hands with them. They engulfed 
the Christian villages ; plunder pillage, 
massacre and rape were the order 
of the day. Every village paid its 
share." 

Thus thousands of Christians were 
either*killed or perished in the flight over 
the snows, and the survivors from this 
Moslem orgy have endured, and still 
continue to endure, indescribable suffer- 
ings. The Armenian vohmteer bands 
came to the rescue and arrested the 
Moslem orgy, but the destruction of the 
Christian population of Persian Armenia 
having been effected, the province again 
became virtually a Russian possession. 
One naturally asks why did the Russian 
army withdraw before even the enemy 
had begun the attack on this province 



62 On tlie Cross 

and leave the unarmed Christians to 
such a terrible fate ? 

In April 1915, the Armenians of Van 
realizing that the Turkish garrison of 
the province was preparing a massacre, 
armed themselves as best they could, 
and ejected the Turkish garrison, mak- 
ing, a seizure of the military stores and 
setting fire to the barracks. Tke Ar- 
menians being in larger numbers in Van 
than in the other provinces, had been 
able to resist in a great measure the 
Turkish mobiUsation : in the other x^ro- 
viuces all the able-bodied men had been 
hounded into the Turkish ranks, but 
there v^'cre able bodied men left in Van to 
fight the enem3\ 

The ejected Turkish garrison reinforced 
by more Turkish troops laid siege to 
Van. The besieged defended themselves 
against a whole Turkish division with 



Q 



Of Europe's Imperialism 6 

artillery for four weeks. Then the third 
and fourth Armenian volunteer corps 
under Hamazasp and Sourine (familiarly 
known as Druro) fighting their way 
from Bagravend (Turkish name Bayazid) 
arrived to the rescue and raised the siege 
of Van. The Turkish army fled. The 
Russian army arrived three daj^s after 
the Armenian volunteers had raised the 
siege of Van. 

After raising the siege of Van, Hama- 
zasp and Druro advanced towards 
Bagesche (Turkish name Bitlis) and 
fought against a Turkish army of from 
fifty thousand to sixty thousand at Sur : 
at this place thej^ were hard pressed, for 
the Russian army at their heels dawdled 
like a white elephant and did nothing 
more ; but it was at this critical juncture 
that Andranik, the leader of the first 
volunteer corp, fighting his way through 



64 On the Cross 

Diliman and Khoi, against another large 
Turkish army which he had defeated, 
arrived at Van, and immediately ad- 
vanced to the help at Sur, and there the 
Turkish army was heavily defeated. 

The volunteer corps with the Russian 
army, at their heels advanced towards 
Bagesche (Turkish name Bitlis) and 
were within four hours of reaching the 
town, when the white elephant at their 
heels became suddenly transformed into 
a dragon, spitting fire and lashing his 
tail in h\ry\ The Russian army ordered 
the Armenian volunteers to turn back. 

The Armenian volunteers found them- 
selves between the devil and the deep 
sea. There was the enemy about twenty 
times their number, in front ; and the 
enemy behind, they were obliged to turn 
back from Bagesche (Turkish name 
Bitli^.) Up till that time, the massacres 



Of Europe's Imperialism 65 

of 1915 had not taken lolace, but this 
turning back instead of forward to vic- 
tory became the wireless signal. The 
Turkish wolves, took courage ; and then 
it was that the butcher battalions of the 
Turkish armies began massacring the 
defenseless Armenians in Bag^sche and 
other places ; w^omen and children and 
old men, from w4iom the help and rescue 
that their own people were bringing 
them, had been turned away. 

Thus became possible the whole series 
of Germano-Turco or Turco-Germano 
Massacres unequalled in the historj^ of 
the world. 

It is known now that in place after 
place bands of a thousand or two thou- 
sand Armenians entrenched themselves 
in positions of defense and fought until 
exhausted against w-hole Turkish divi- 
sions ; but no help x'eached them because 



nP) On the Cross 

the Russian army was unable to endure 
the fatigues of an advance. Only in one 
place by the sea coast, four thousand 
and fiftj^-eight Armenians (including 
men, women and children) were rescued 
by a French cruiser. An accurate census 
gives the number of the men, above 
fourteen \'ears of age, in this group, at 
1054 : this 1054 men fought for weeks 
against an enemy more then twenty 
times their number. 

What a refutation do these facts 
constitute of the pen pictures of Armen- 
ian cowardice which writers of civilized 
Christendom have for 3'ears sedulously 
and indefatigably portrayed ? 

** When the bull is down ; the knife 
diggers increase." 

Is an Armenian proverb. So it has 
been with the Armenians. Having lost 
their independence, not only were they 



Of Europe's Imperialism 67 

subjected to the cruelties and oppres- 
sions of the usurpers of their countr^^, 
but their unhappy position left them 
open to the assailments of unscrupulous 
writers interested in white-washing the 
Turk. 

Khemakh is a small town on the 
borders of the western Euphrates : the 
mountain pass leading from Ezynka 
(Turkish name Erzingian) had been 
occupied by the Armenian volunteers 
who had arrived within one hour of 
reaching this town. It was known that 
deported Armenian women and children 
had been driven there from Karine 
(Turkish name Erzeroom) to die of ex- 
• posure and starvation : the Armenian 
volunteers were naturally for the for- 
ward march to rescue the deportees and 
the Armenians of Khemakh ; but the 
Russian command compelled them to 



» 



fiS On the Cross 

turn back from this point. The result 
was that all the Armenians in Khemakh 
perished. 

As an instance of one of the forms the 
Turkish and German murder of Armeni- 
ans took, an eyewitness, (himself a 
:^itive) told me, he had seen on the 
Malatia plain thousands of Armenian 
women and children absolutely naked, 
the last rags having been torn off their 
bodies 133^ the Turkish gendarmes : these 
women and children had been dumped 
on the bare earth exposed to the ele- 
ments in that naked condition, and were 
being slowly killed by hunger and thirst. 
The ej^e witness told me he saw and 
heard this mass of women and children 
kneeling and praj^ing '* Oh God 1'* they 
cried, ^^ look down and see what has been 
done to us. '^ 

After the siege of Van was raised. 



Of Europe's Imperialism 69 

Aram, the leader of the defense, became 
governor of Van, and for the first time 
in five centuries an Armenian governed a 
province of Armenia. 

Since massacres had been started in 
the other provinces, after the Russian 
army compelled the Armenian volunteers 
to turn back from Bagesche ; tens of 
thousands of defenseless Armenians^ in- 
cluding a very large percentage of 
women and children, flocked into Van 
from the neighbouring villages to escape 
the butcheries of the Turkish and Koord- 
isli soldier3^ ; and all the powers and 
energies of the Armenians of Van which 
had hitherto been exercised for defense 
were now devoted to the relief of these 
refugees crowding into Van. 

The scourge of tj^phus was prevalent, 
and the dirty, lazy Moslems that had 
been left in Van added to the burdens of 



70 On the Cross 

both Americans and Armenians. Mrs. 
Usher, the wife of the American medical 
missionar\^, Dr. Usher, succumbed to 
typhus which she contracted through 
nursing sick Moslems. 

Finall3^, however, through untiring 
work order was restored, and the people 
managed to progress into some sort of 
comfort and to begin to provide the 
necessaries of life for themselves. It was 
a large work which the Armenians 
accomplished in three mouths. 

In the meantime the Armenian volun- 
teers were fighting the enemy outside of 
Van in the neighbouring districts. 

*^ Bo3^s ! advance and clean out ! " 
was Andranik's order, and the ** boys " 
were advancing and cleaning out. 

The Russian army was resting and 
recuperating in Van. 
. Suddcnl^^ the Russian army ordered 



Of Europe's Imperialism 71 

the evacuation of Van. ** The wolf! the 
wolf! '* was the cry before an3r wolf had 
appeared ; and the whole population 
were ordered to evacuate Van and retreat 
to the frontiers of Russian Armenia ; 
which meant for women and children a 
march of fifteen or sixteen days. 
• The order for the evacuation of Van, 
we are told came from Petrograd. Since 
the Armenian volunteers were occupied 
killing Turks out of Van, whilst the 
Russian army was resting and recuperat- 
ing ; and the civil population of Van had 
disbanded for civil work ; the Russian 
army w^as master of the situation and 
compelled the Armenians to evacuate 
Van. 

Then began that wanton retreat of 
death and destruction ; bands of murder- 
ous Koords pursued the women and 
children on the march ; women threw 



72 On the Cross 

their children into the river and leaped 
into tlie flood after them ; and in many 
cases, out of families of thirteen or 
fourteen only three or four reached the 
frontiers of Russian Armenia in an ex- 
hausted condition, the others having 
perished on the march. 

We can find no other reason for eva- 
cuation except that it was deliberately 
compelled in order to destroy the Arme- 
nian population and the iDrovisional 
Armenian government of Van. 

In the report of the Caucasus Unit 
of the London Lord Mayor's Fund 
we read the following account of the 
evacuation. 

*^ And then, after thej^ " (the Arme- 
nians) *' were gone, no Tui*kisli regular 
troops ever came near the town. A 
handful of irregular Chettis was all that 
entered the town," 



Of Europe's Imperialism 73 

A small band of Armenian volunteers 
entered Van in about a week's time, but 
owing to the smallness of their numbers 
were compelled to retreat. Finally in 
about a month and half Van was retaken 
by the Armenian volunteers, but the 
town, and all the venerable edifices of 
an ancient Armenia had been system- 
atically destroj^ed. 

Van became a Russian province with 
a governor bearing the name of ** Alfred." 
In the interests of Imperialism *' Alfred " 
was better than ** Aram." 

Governor Alfred finally left Van after 
the second flight which took place in 
August 1916, had been engineered. Re- 
patriation had been encouraged by the 
Russian government in order to bring 
about the destruction of the remnant left 
from the first flight, but in this second 
flight, two hundred and fifty Armenian 



74 On the Cross 

volunteers saved the lives of the twenty- 
five thousand Armenians of Van. The 
material loss was complete. 

The taking of Bagesche (Turkish name 
Bitlis) had become a wager with the 
Cossacks *' If anyone can take Bagesche" 
they said *^ it is Andranik, and no one 
else can do it." 

And Andranik did it. In January 1916, 
he entered Bagesche with his men in the 
dead of night ; it was a surprise coup 
which completely demoralized the Turkish 
Rtmy, The Turks took to their heels, 
and the Armenians occupied Bagesche. 

Since the beginning of the campaign in 
Armenia, the Russian government had 
offered the Cossacks six thousand roubles 
for Andranik's head ; but the bribe failed, 
owing to Andranik's popularity as mili- 
tary chief and the winning personality of 
the man. 



Of Europe's Impericilism 75 

** There is no man to equal Andranik," 
said the Cossacks, ** we are friends, and 
we do not want such money." 

Finally the Russian government hauled 
up Andranik before a Court Martial for 
shooting a traitor Russian general, but 
owing to his popularity they could not 
hang him, as they hanged some other 
young Armenians *^ for killing Tarks.^^ 

It was a hard battle that Armenians 
were fighting, sandwiched between two 
enemies ; but if the Russian army had 
remained in Russia, the Armenian mas- 
sacres of 1915 could not have been 
accomplished. 

Thanks to this fact of the Russian 
army either being stricken with para- 
lysis in the campaign in Armenia, or 
active only in compelling retreats and 
evacuations of occupied positions. And 
thanks also to the fact, that England 



76 Oil the Cross 

holding Cj^prus as a naval base, within 
five or six hours steam of Alexandretta or 
an^^ other Asia Minor port ; 3'et the Bri- 
tish authorities did not see how impera- 
tive it was to land two hundred or three 
hundred thousand soldiers at any of 
these Asia Minor ports, and how suc- 
cessful such an operation could prove. 
Thanks to these facts the Germano- 
Turco or Turco-Germano government 
were able to accomplish their hellish 
design of exterminating the Armenians. 

But even after the fearful horrors of 
1915, the question is asked '* Why not 
an Anglo-Turkish Separate Peace ? " 
and a rapprochement between England 
and 'Micr old Ally Turkey" is dis- 
cussed. 

But what is '' Turkey " ? Is it not a 
spurious name for a camp of armed 
robbers? 



Of Europe's Imperialism 77 

And what has been the record of these 
robbers through the centuries of usurpa- 
tion ? 

To murder and pillage the heirs of the 
robbed inheritance : to destroy, to devas- 
tate, what the real owners of the soil 
build up hj patient labour and toil ! 

And is it with this ^^ Turkey '^ that, as 
we are told, England's *' best interests 
areUnked''??? 

The period through which w^e are now 
passing is solemn and awful, so solemn 
and awful that sophistications of 
language promulgated from pulpit, plat- 
form, and press, according to time- 
honoured custoin and usage, become in 
this solemn and awful period crimes that 
put to shame the Devil and his legions. 

The w^orld requires now that the Truth 
should be proclaimed. 

Britain has proclaimed that she is 



78 On the Cross 

fighting the battle of small nationalities ; 
but the small nationalities that have 
suffered almost to extinction require 
deeds and not words, and the clear dut^^ 
of Britain lies now in making expiation 
to the Armenians for the crime of sup- 
porting and upholding their Turkish 
murderers and oppressors for a century 
of time. 

But for British assistance and both 
moral and material support the Turkish 
Agony would have been wiped off from 
the face of the earth long before the 
Devil had raised up Germany for the 
expansion of German Imperialism in 
what has been called ^' Turkey." 



CHAPTER lY 

And Samson took hold of the two middle pil- 
lars on which the house rested, and 
leaned upon them, the one with his right 
hand, and the other with his left. 

Judges XVL—29. 

QAMSON the slave, Samson the pri- 
^ soner, Samson with his two eyes 
put out, Samson mocked and jeered and 
tormented ; this Samson took hold of 
the pillars of the house wherein his 
oppressors feasted, and brake them, and 
the house fell, and his tormentors and 
himself perished in the ruins. How 
much better it would have been for the 
Philistines if they had not, with the help 
of Delilah ^s treachery, shorn the locks of 
Samson's strength, and then made a 



80 On the Cross 

slave and a prisoner of him. How much 
better for Samson and for themselves. 

Mr. Norman AngelPs comfortaljle 
doctrine. 

** It cannot throughout this discussion 
be too often repeated that the world has 
been modified, and that what was pos- 
sible to the Canaanites or the Romans or 
even to the Normans, is no longer 
possible to us. 

*^ The edict can no longer go forth 
^ to slay ever\^ male child ' that is born 
into the conquered territory, in order 
that the race may be exterminated.*^ 

Had a very apprecialDle audience 
previous to the war for the simple reason 
that those for whom the ^^ edict ** w^as 
going forth about the time that Mr. 
Angell w^rote his book^ were people of 
such inconsequence as the Armenians, 
the natives of the Congo and Putumayo 



Of Europe'vS Imperialism 81 

and others of such ilk; but since the 
German atrocities in Belgium and 
northern France, when the *' edict '' 
went forth for such superior humanity 
as Belgians and French, the comfortable 
doctrine exploded. 

Like a man who, after having gorged 
himself at a banquet, declares that there 
are no hungrj^ people on earth ; so Mr, 
Angell assured his readers that such 
cruelties as had been practised by op- 
pressors in the past were no longer 
possible in the ciYilised and enlightened 
century in which we lived : and this 
assurance was given in the teeth of 
hideous massacres cai#ried on an ex- 
tensive scale at stated periods, and the 
perennial ** petites tueries '* (little slaugh- 
ters) as a Greek writer described the 
murders which the Turkish Government, 
bolstex'ed up by powerful European 



82 On the Cross 

Governments, carried on three hundred 
and sixty-five days in the j^ear for the 
extermination of the Armenians. But 
Mr. Angell iliving in his insular countr3^ 
guarded by a powerful fleet assured the 
*^ civilised world " that the barbarities 
of past ages were things of the past ; 
and the *' civilised world " went on in its 
jo3''ful way ; the nations feasted and 
made merrj^, whilst Armenians cried out 
in their agon3^ cried out and died, with 
not onl3^ none to heed their crjy but 
many to support their murderers. But 
even as blind Samson laid hold of the 
pillars of the house, so the Ar- 
menian nation ,laid hold of Europe's 
pillars of State and pulled them 
down. 

Through decade after decade of tribu- 
lation and anguish the Armenians asked 
for mere elementary justice, embodied in 



Of Europe's ImperiallvSm S3 

the five words of their demand '' Security 
of life and property/^ 

Knowing full well how they were 
engulphed In the vortex of European 
rivalries they did not dare to claim 
autonomy and their right to their own 
countrj^ But even this simple element- 
ary justice which they demanded as a 
relief from the most barbarous savage 
blood-thirsty and cruel persecution that 
ever the world has known, the Christian 
Governments of Europe could not see 
their way to grant, for the reason, that, 
the granting of this simple elementary 
justice to the Armenians would at the 
same time arrest the iniquitous policies 
thej^ were pursuing in what has been 
called the ** Ottoman Empire." 

But the pursuit of these policies re- 
sulted in the war. 

Armageddon grew out of the support 



S4 On the Cross 

that tlie powerful governments of Eu- 
rope gave to the oppressor of Armenia. 
It came hito being as the Nemesis of 
Armenian agony, even as the slaves that 
Imperial Rome fettered became the cause 
of Rome's destruction. It is clear to the 
world now that the explosion in Europe 
resulted from European rivalries in the 
Turkish Empire. 

It would have been better for Europe 
if she had not forged new chains for 
Armenia, if she had not again and again 
bound the fetters the Armenians were 
struggling to break, and unceasingly 
supplied the Turkish wolf new teeth, the 
better to devour his helpless victims. It 
would have been better for Euro^Dc if she 
had not held down an intelligent, indus- 
trious and Christian nation under the 
heel of the most cruel aud most vicious 
of savages, and artificially kept up the 



Of Europe's Imperialism 85 

dominance of ruffians over a people who 
were eivilised at a period of tlie world's 
history when the nations of Eurojpe could 
be designated as barbarians. 

An autonomous Armenia under the 
protection of a great neutral Po\Yer like 
the United States of America or under 
the leading Christian States of Euroi3e, 
with the internationalisation and neu- 
tralisation of Constantinople, would 
have solved the problem of European 
jealousies and ended the Armenian 
agony. It would have averted the lurid 
night of horrors that coming upon us all 
has broken the manhood and woman- 
hood, the 3^outh and childhood of the 
nations, outraging humanity, blasting 
civilisation, and crucifying Christianit3^ 
But Imperialism knows neither justice 
nor merc3^, ^^^ does it know hpw to 
choose the patli of righteousucsSi the 



86 On the Cross 

only path that leads to peace. In the 
ruin that has come none have benefited, 
neither Europe nor Armenia, only God's 
fair earth has been darkened, blood and 
tears, pain and anguish, and hatred born 
out of wrongs, have taken the place of 
joys and smiles and good-will among the 
nations. 

We all expect now that Armenia will 
be delivered from the Turkish hell ; but 
this deliverance could have been effected 
without the destruction of millions of 
Armenians, without half a century of 
torment and anguish, without that 
series of indescribable sufferings of our 
people, which, burned into our memories, 
will go down with us from generation 
to generation, never to be forgot- 
ten, and (God help us) never to be 
forgiven. 

An intelligent, industrious and pro- 



Of Europe's Imperialism 87 

gressive people, the torcTi-bearers of 
Christianity, the oldest upholders among 
the nations of Christian ethics, who had 
established their national life on a State 
Chureh, the foundations of which were 
laid on religious freedom, would not have 
done as their oppressors, who lived only 
for violence, did, desolate fairest regions 
of the earth, bury the civilisation of the 
past under i-uins, outrage humanity and 
write history in blood and fire. But a 
people gifted with brain power to an 
excellent degree, with remarkable hardi- 
hood of character, given free scope for 
their intellect and energies, independent 
and happy instead of enslaved and 
agonised, w^ould have contributed their 
share to the world's advancement and 
betterment, even as their industry and 
labour would have added to the supply 
of the world's markets from the produce 



88 On the Cross 

of their fertile soil and the manifold 
resources of their country. 

All these things Europe knew, but 
there was one thing that Europe was 
too proud to know— the hand of Nemesis 
cannot be staj-ed. Europe did not know 
that even as blind Samson pulled down 
the pillars of the house wherein his tor- 
mentors feasted, even so agonised Arme- 
nia would one day pull down Europe's 
pillars of State. 



CHAPTER Y. 

The Great Divide That Will Secure 
A Stable Peace. 

Three and a half j^ears of a most 
disastrous and hideous war, desolathig 
whole countries and inflicting incalcul- 
able and indescribable miseries on mil- 
lions of innocent human beings has run 
on its fearful course: countless towns, 
cities, villages and provinces have been 
destroyed ; myrids of homesteads have 
been turned into ashes and ruins, and 
their former occupants, if not murdered, 
are wandering homeless on the face of 
the earth : neither sex nor age have been 
spared ; women and children, greybeards 
and babes, helpless infancy and totter- 
ing old age, all have been pitilessly 



90 On the Cross 

swept into the maelstrom to perish. 
Not only man-slaying machinery, but 
famine and pestilence are daily exacting 
their toll, and it must be universally 
admitted that the greatest need of 
suffering humanity at the present time, 
is a cessation of this deviPs carni- 
val that from day to day is widening the 
area of death and destruction and 
increasing miseries grievous to be borne. 

A retrospect of the past three and half 
yeai's must naturally create in the heart 
of every man and woman in whom 
humane emotions are not extinct, an 
earnest desire, that such horrors as have 
come upon our woi'ld during this short 
but frightful period, should never be 
possible again, and such a desire, it must 
be presumed, is very wide spread. 

To prevent the possibility of such 
horrors as have been possible for the 



Of Europe's Imperialism 91 

IDast three and half years, the nations 
must work for a Stable Peace. But Peace 
and Imperialism cannot live together 
in our world ; where Imperialism 
strides, the shade of Peace flits cowering 
and stricken. If Peace must reign on 
earth, then Imperialism, the pitiless 
monster that has scourged the earth 
through the centuries, must be hanged 
on the gallows of popular thought, and 
buried in the grave dug bj popular 
opinion. Mankind must come to con- 
sider Impei'ialism as its greatest and 
most merciless foe. 

At present, Germany, the Apotheosis 
of Imperialism, is regarded by a league 
of nations great and small, with hatred 
and abhorrence ; but after w^e have 
ostracised Germany, let us remember to 
keep Imperialism in universal disrepute 
for all time. 



92 On tlie Cross 

To be able to insure a Stable Peace, 
the nations must understand the causes 
that created the war. The world knows 
that Germany launched the war, but the 
inflammable materials were all read3% 
piled up for the explosion, and Germany 
struck the match to the tinder : therefore 
to make a Stable Peace, the nations must 
also understand wh^^ Germany struck the 
match to the tinder and let loose the 
horrors of hell upon the face of our earth. 

The storm-centre is the Near East ; 
when that fact is publicly and univer- 
sally admitted, it will become easier to 
understand how to effect a Stable Peace. 
If Alsace-Lorraine were the sore spot 
that caused the explosion the war 
would have been confined to the west 
front of Europe, Why should one mil-- 
lion innocent Armenians in • f^r away 
Armenia and Asia Minor have been done 



Of Europe's Imperialism 93 

to death by hideous ingenuities of cru- 
elties, unsurpassed in the world's record 

of cruelty ? ? ? 

For a hundred years, every war in 
Europe has originated from the scramble 
for the spoils of what has been called the 
'' Ottoman Empire " : even the Franco- 
German war of 1870 cannot be classed 
as an, exception, since it was the indirect 
outcome of the Treaty of Paris. France 
reaped in 1870, what Louis Napoleon 
sowed in 1858. 

Germany started the present war in 
order to secure in the Near. East, the 
German Empire which Germany had 
been seeking to build up since the day 
that Bismarck officiated as ^' an honest 
broker" at the Berlin Congress. 

Let us make a mental retrospect. Let 
us conjure up a mental vision of that 
eventful day forty years ago, when a 



94 On the Cross 

group of cynical conscienceless unscrupu- 
lous politicians, assembled in conclave, 
and with a few scratches of their pens, 
consigned to future woe and misery, 
millions of innocent human beings. Then 
let us reflect on the psychological state 
of being of the great nations involved, 
whose apathy or indifference allowed the 
perpetration of the crime ! 

The ground was prepared for Ger- 
many at the Berlin Congress. 

It has been said and written, often 
enough, that Germany w^as seeking 
world domination. Whether Germany 
was, or was not, seeking w^orld domina- 
tion, it is certain that Germany was 
seeking domination in the Near East, 
and it was for the purpose of securing 
domination in the Near East, that 
Germany struck the match to the tinder 
in Europe. It was to sccvire domination 



Of Europe's Imperialism 95 

in the Near East that Germany prepared 
an elaborated machinery of war, and 
organised a highly efficient militarism by 
means of which she hoped to over-come 
her opponents to this particular domina- 
tion which she was determined to secure. 
To reach that goal Germany went further 
and organised wdth German thorough- 
ness of organization, the extermination 
of an innocent people who stood in the 
path of German Imperialism. 

That this war of unprecedented 
magnitude and cruelties, is at bottom, a 
struggle between rival Imperialisms, 
cannot be denied ; and however much it 
may rage on the east or west front of 
Europe, that the storm centre is in the 
Near East, is evident. 

The question therefore comes how 
shall the raging torrents of rival Im- 
perialisms be stayed ? What dam or 



9G On the Cross 

barrier must be built up between them 
to prevent the recurrence of such horrors 
that for the sake of our common human- 
ity and our common civilisation ; and 
for the upholding of a trampled and 
crucified Christianity should never be 
allowed to occur again ? 

Through decade after decacle of woe 
and tribulation in the Near East when 
the Christian peoples subject to Turkish 
domination, groaned and died under 
Turkish oppreSvSions and Turkish atroci- 
ties ; wliilvSt the Great Powers of Europe 
could not come to any settlement over 
the division of the spoils of what has been 
called the Ottoman Empire ; the United 
States refused to take any part, either 
passive or active, which might have 
brought about a settlement of the 
grievous Eastern Question, always put- 
ting forward when appealed, the plea or 



Of Europe's Iiiiperiallsm 97 

decision, that the United States could 
not and would iiot interfere in the 
** Affairs of Europe ". 

By the light of the present we can now 
see that had the United States interfered 
(if only for the sake of humanity) when 
five hundred thousand innocent Arme- 
nians were done to death between the 
years 1894/96, Armageddon had not 
been ; since any interference on behalf of 
the Armenians, would of necessity have 
revealed secret diplomacies, and have 
brought to world publicity the iniquitous 
policies pursued by the Powers of Europe. 

Now the United States has been 
dragged into interference, in ** European 
Affairs " into a very big interference, 
very, very much bigger than an3^ inter- 
ference that would have been required in 
intervening to save the lives of three or 
four million Armenians ; and the ques- 



08 On the Cross 

tion comes ; now that '^ European 
Affairs '^ have become American affairs ; 
what shall the United States do for 
Armenia and Armenians at the Peace 
Conference? 

To all things there comes an end in 
our world, so too, some dajy whether 
soon or late,|[tlie war must end ; and 
then will come the day of settlement. 
But no Peace Conference that does not 
take into consideration the absolute fact 
that the Near East is the storm centre 
of the war can w^ork for a Stable Peace. 

A look at the map of the Near East is 
necessar3^ There is Constantinople, the 
gates between two continents, towards 
which Russian Imperialism was strug- 
gling to advance for more than a century, 
and British Imperialism struggling to 
arrest that advance for the same period 
of time, and w^here German Imperialism 



Of Europe's Imperialism 99 

has within a quater of a century set up 
its throne. And there is the passage of 
the Dardanelles, which was the narrow 
outlet to the sea of the huge land-locked 
Russia of the past, but which is still a 
strategic point to the sea route of tlie 
British Empire. In the United States of 
America, there has long been talk of an 
International '* League to Enforce 
Peace" In that case, the Head Office 
of this *' League to Enforce Peace" 
should be located In Constantinople 
at the entrance to the Dardanelles. 

But Constantinople has been to Ger- 
many only the gates to that corridor on 
which Germany was building her Im- 
perialistic rallwaj^ which was designed 
to be the string by means of which all 
the pearls of German Empire in the Near 
East were to be strung. If the corridor 
be los t to Gei'many, the gates will lead 



100 On the Cross 

to no where and thus be of no further 
use. 

Another look at the map of the Near 



There is the territory" extending from 
the shores of the Bosphorous to the 
mouth of the Persian Gulf, over which, 
before the war, was running part of the 
wajy (and which Germany intended 
should run the entire length of the way) 
Germany's Imperial Railway, across 
Asia Minor in the west. Lesser Armenia 
in the centre, and Alesopotamia in the 
east : the railway of which the terminus 
at the month of the Persian Gulf was 
seized by Britain, and w^hich Germany 
has been *^ hacking '^ her way through 
rivers of gore to secure. Now that huge 
land locked Russia has become, or is 
becoming divided up, the menace of 
Constantinople has been partially 



Of Europe's Imperialism 101 

removed ; but the menace of that ** cor- 
ridor '^ which the Kaiser purchased from 
Abd-ul Hamid with Armenian blood, still 
remains, and since God's laws are eternal 
and changeless, that menace must re- 
main until Justice is done to Armenians. 

Justice is like the sun in the heavens, 
it does not require telescopes to be seen ; 
but what is of importance is, that Justice 
to Armenia and the Armenians is the 
foundation of a Stable Peace. 

Armenia is the bridge country in the 

Near East. Armenia lies between Asia 

» 

Minor on the west and Mesopotaimia 
on the east. Thus Armenia in the 
centre, between Asia Minor and Meso- 
potamia becomes the ** Great Divide. 
But to secure a 'Stable Peace it is neces- 
sary that this Great Divide should be 
made Autonomous under the Protec- 
torate of a nreat neutral State. 



102 On the Cross 

Armenia belongs to the Armenians, 
and Justice requires that an Autonomous 
Armenia should be established. Prudence 
requires that an American Protectorate 
be created over this Autonomous Arme- 
nia extending from the plains of Ararat 
to the shores of the Mediterranean ; that 
is beginning from the country round 
Ararat in Russian Armenia to the har- 
bour of Alexandretta in the Mediter- 
ranean. 

Armenia under American Protectorate 
will thus become the ''Great Divide" 
between rival imperialistic claims; even 
as she is geograiDhically the *' Great 
Divide " between Asia Minor and Meso- 
potamia, where rival imperialistic claims 
are contending. 

Armenia has been the bone of conten- 
tion of rival Imperialisms through iDlood 
stained centuries. It is a geographical 



Of Europe's Imperialism 103 

position that makes history, and the geo- 
graphical position of Armenia has made 
history enough written with the blood 
*and tears of Armenians and that sort of 
a history has been very largely written 
dming the last three and half years. 

In addressing Congress on February 
11th 1918, President Wilson said that 
the United States '' entered this war be 
cause she was made a partner, whether 
she would or not, in the sufferings and 
indignities inflicted by the military 
masters of Germany against the peace 
and security of mankind ; and the condi- 
tions of peace will touch her as nearly 
as they will touch any other nation to 
which is entrusted a leading part in the 
maintenance of civiUzation. She can not 
see her way to peace until the causes of 
this war are removed, its renewal ren- 
dered as nearly as may be impossible. 



104 On the Cross 

'^ This war had its roots in the 
disregard of the rights of small nations 
and of nationalities which lacked the 
union and the force to make good their 
claim to determine their own allegiance 
and their own forms of political life. 
Covenants must now be entered into 
which will render such things impossible 
for the future ; and these covenants must 
be backed by the united force of all the 
nations that love Justice and are wiUing 
to maintain it at an^^ cost." 

Herein lies the keynote to President 
Wilsons address ; he has said that the 
United States ^* cannot see her way to 
peace until the causes of this war are 
removed " and that *' This war had its 
roots in the disregard of the rights oi 
small nations and of nationalities which 
lacked the union and the force to make 
good their claim to determine their own 



Of Europe's Imperialism 105 

allegiance and their own forms of poli- 
tical life '^ *' Govern ants must now he 
entered into v/hich will render such 
things impossible for the future. ^^ 

Armenia lias been crucified on the 
cross of Europe's Imperialism. No otlier 
small nation has been subjected to the 
measure of wrongs and sufferings that 
the Armenians have been subjected. The 
rights of no other small nation have 
been so flagrantly disregarded as the 
rights of the Armenians. The roots of 
this war lie in the Armenian Martja-dom. 

Armenians ask for Justice. Long has 
their demand been cried out to the deaf 
ears of Christendom. But Christendom 
must hear the Armenian demand at the 
Peace Conference. A Stable Peace can 
only be built upon Justice, and the Arme- 
nians demand Justice. 

February 15th, 1918. ^ 



As these pages are going through the press tele- 
graphic dispatches in the nejvspapers report the 
conclusion of a new Russo-Germano-Turco-Treaty. 

I will quote the text. 

*^ Russia will completely evacuate the 
Anatolian provinces and as sopn as 
possible return these to Turke3\ The 
districts of Ardahan, Batoum and Kars 
shall likewise be evacuated by Russia 
w^ithout delay. Russia will not interfere 
with reorganization of constitutional 
and international conditions in these 
districts, but leaves these populations 
thereof in agreement with the neigh- 
bouring states particularly Turkey. " 

A geographical position makes history, 
therefore the Russian Dragon must be 
broken into pieces before Armenians can 
live on the soil of Armenia. 



Of Europe's Imperialism 107 

But we must regard this new Russo- 
Germano-Turco Treaty as the sequel 
to the Russo-Germano-TuiTo Treaty 
ratified at Constantinople six months 
before war was declared in Europe, and 
byf^the terms of which the Turkish 
Government undertook the extermina- 
tion of the Armenians with Russia 
and Germany co-operating behind the 
scenes. 

** Anatolian provinces " is the name 
by which the murderers of the Armenians 
designate Armenia ; and now the under- 
taking in the terms of the first Russo- 
Germano-Turco Treaty having been 
accomplished, by the terms of the second, 
Abel's inheritance is handed back to 
Cain. 

** And when they had crucified him, they 
parted his garments among them by casting 
lots." 



108 On the Cross 

And what is the object of tliis new 
Russo-Germano-Turco Treaty ? Is it 
not aimed towards the extermination of 
th.e two miUion Armenians ^n Russian 
Armenia and the remnant left from 
Turkish atrocities of the past ? ▼ 

Is it not meant to create a great 
empire of Islam from the Bosphorous to 
the fatherland of the Turk, Turkes^ 
tan ? 

The Armenians stand on the bridge 
that connects Constantinople to Turkes- 
tan, therefore the Armenians must be 
exterminated. 

Batoum, Ardahan and Kars were 
gained for Russia by Armenian generals 
in the Russo-Turkish war 1876/77. 
Kars was stormed and taken by the 
Armenian general Mikhael Loris Melikh. 
Kars is a fortress of ancient Armenia. 

Karine (Turkish name Erzeroom) was 



Of Europe's Imperialism 109 

taken in 1877, not by Russians, but by 
Armenian soldiers and officers in the 
Russian army, and by the Berlin 
Treaty returned to the Turk. 

In the last campaign in Armenia, 
Karine (Turkish name Erzeroom) was 
occupied February 16th 1916, not by 
the '* strategy '* of the Grand Duke 
Nicholas as proclaimed in newspapers of 
civilized Christendom, not b3^ the gener- 
alship of the Gi*and Duke's henchman, 
Yudenitch, but, as the Grand Duke 
himself proclaimed *' by the brave troops 
of the army of the Caucasus " '* the 
brave troops '^ that raised the siege of 
Van ; that saved the situation at 
Revandouz, at Diliman and Khoi, and 
gave the Turks the thrashing of their 
lives at the battle of Sara Kamisch, and 
won* all the victories in Armenia which 
Russia blasted and nullified. 



110 On the Cross 

** The brave troo]3S " who fought with 
the strength that love gives, and with 
the courage that desperation brings. 

But how shall Cain enter into Abel's 
inheritance ? ? ? 

Let us stead^^ our faith in the God of 
Abel and live. 

If the wrhole earth shall pass awa}', yet 
God's laws will stand. 

"And now cursed art thou from the 
ground, which hath opened its mouth to 
receive thy brother's blood from thy hand ; 
when thou tillest the ground it shall not 
henceforth yield unto thee its strength. " 

And there is also another side to this 
burning question — When the Ambas- 
sadors of the great Christian powers 
shall once more be accredited to the 
"Sublime Porte" lately designated by 
an English clergyman as the '' Gates of 
Hell" 



Of Eitrope^s Imperialism 111 

When the representatives of these 
great Christian powers shall present 
their credentials at the ** Gates of 
Hell " and make their obeisances to 
ruffians whose hands reek with the 
blood of four million innocent Chris- 
tians* ; the nthere will be produced a 
still more '' detestable combination of 
hj'^pocrisy" than ''the world has yet 
produced " ; far '' more terrible in its 
consequences " than the terrible conse- 
quences we have already seen, and the 
degradation of Christendom will be 
complete. 



* There were more than four million Armenians under 
Turkish dominance in 1878. 



Pbinted 

BY 

The Fukuin Printing Co., Ltd., 
Yokohama, Japan. 



113 



THE GREAT EVIL 

'* A clever and powerful writer, who has already issued 
several books and many pamphlets treating of the wrongs 
and outrages which her country hns suffered. Her words 
come from the heart, and constitute a burning arraignment 
of the great powers which have allowed these wrongs to be 
perpetrated. She speaks from the closest personal know- 
ledge."—" Advocate of Peace " Washington— D.C. 

" The ultimate object of this volume is a plea for per- 
secuted Armenia, of which country the author has been for 
several years a champion, but the book is also a vigorous 
arraignment of imperialism which she contends, is the main 
cause of the present great war. She is a powerful pleader 
and submits an array of facts that are very convincing. 
Her style is trenchant and virile, and lovers of justice will 
be impressed by what she has written. She is an intelligent 
apostle of peace and deserves a large audience. Her story 
of what imperialism has done to Armenia is pathetic, and 
should stir the blood of all who detest tyranny. Her 
contentions cannot be refuted."— " 7/?^ Argus" Albany 
New York. 

" Here is a voice out of Armenia that may raise a few 
echoes. It is not a very big book but it will command the 
close attention of the reader who opens it, for it shows a 
very clear comprehension of European diplomacy; nor 
does the author hesitate to draw conclusions and fix 
responsibility."—" Binghamton Press " Binghamton— N.Y. 

" The Great Evil " is a thrilling little volume by Diana 
Agabeg Apcar in which she discusses the present great 
European war telling some of the causes that have led up to 
the conflict and making an earnest plea for peace for all 
nations. The author arraigns with terrible and forceful 
arguments. 

" Whether one agrees with all the author has to say, it 
does not take away from the book's interest for it is alive 
with conviction and bears the mark of an intelligent and 
well informed observer. The author has written several 
other able books, notably the one entitled "Betrayed 
Armenia" and the reading public throughout the country 
are interested in what she has to say."—" Buffalo Courier " 
Buffalo-N.Y. 



114 The Great Evil. 

To those who are reading all the war books being put 
out, we should say "Don't Miss this onej'—" Pittsburg 
Dispatch " Pittsburg—Pa. 

"Strangest and most poetic of books on the war is this 
quaint little volume written by an Armenian woman. In 
one sentence is found keen analysis of the causes of the war, 
in the next, a burst of Old Testament passion and prophecy. 
A keen cut essay on recent international relations gives 
place to an allegory denouncing imperialism and its bitter 
Dead Sea fruit. In intense style, and a most unconven- 
tional book which gives a vivid view of the war from a 
new view point — the inside." — " Portland Telegram " Port- 
land—Ore. 

" The Great Evil " is an indictment of imperialism. The 
book is a plea for peace and is vigorously written."™" T/ie 
Bulletin " San Francisco— Cal. 

This unique work is written by an Armenian. The 
author presents a picture of the great war in Europe and its 
causes which are attributed especially to the Congress of 
Berlin in 1878."—" Baltimore American " Baltimore— Md. 

"A study of the European War and its causes. The 
keynote is given in the introduction. A strong plea for the 
peace that can come only by the establishment of the 
brotherhood of man." — ** Woman's Missionary Friend " 
Boston — Mass. 

" The author is a foe of imperialism and a peace worker, 
and writes with power and conviction." — " Detroit Tribune " 
Detroit— Mich. 

" Imperialism is "The Great Evil" to which the author 
refers, and the coming of the book is most timely, at this 
epoch, when the entire population of the globe is stirred by 
the red hand of carnage, caused, according to the author, by 
Imperialism. 

" Her style is convincing and forceful, and those who do 
not altogether agree with her views, must admire the 
lucidity of their presentment by her unsparing pen. Many 
of the author's arguments are cogent, and her aphorisms 
pointed with truth."— 'V<^/'«» Gazette " Yokohama, 



115 



THE PEACE PROBLEM 



" One of the finest dissertations on the subject of univer- 
sal peace ever written in any language. These splendid 
books should be read. Nothing so strong has been written 
iov yt^vs."— Japan Gazette, Yokohama. 

"Mrs. Apcar is nothing if not sincere in her writings, and 
she brings to bear on the politics of the Near East wide 
knowledge of the subject and very keen powers of 
observation. " — Far East, Tokyo. 

"We have heard so much of the outrages in the Near 
East, that this book is most opportune, giving as it does, a 
clear insight into all the political conditions affecting the 
situation. It also is apparent that the author has made an 
exhaustive study of the whole siiMaXiovi*"— Express, Los 
Angeles, Cal. 

" It helps to impress the reader with the feeling that the 
monumental folly of the present era is its tenacity in 
holding on to the tradition of war as the only means of 
settling acute international disputes." — The Minneapolis 
Journal. 

"The great argument of Gladstone years ago about 
Bulgarian atrocities was not more powerful in its accumu- 
lation of horrors and of citations in proof of them than is 
this small book. "—Buffalo News, Buffalo. N.Y. 

From the far away press, of the Japan Gazette, Yokohama, 
comes " The Peace Problem by Diana Agabeg Apcar. The 
point the author makes is that the peace of Europe about 
which so much is written, and for which so much effort has 
been expended, is an impossibility while the great nations 
like England and Germany continue to sustain "the 
unspeakable Turk. " While the great powers continue to 
be responsible for wrong there can be no peace which is 
real between themselves. It is a thrilling appeal. "-—Chicago 
News, 

"Knowledge of world-politics, absolute sincerity and 
burning eloquence characterize this inspired appeal. Diana 
Agabeg Apcar is a prophetess. The Sibyl could not be 
more fully inspired nor Valla more eloquent. "—P<75i- 
Dispaicht St. Louis, Mo. . . 



116 

PEACE AND NO PEACE 

*' It is an impassioned plea for peace, marked by sincerity 
and obviously the product of a student of the great ' grab 
act * game practised by the nations who stand for might as 
opposed to right, the so-called Christian nations."— -Hw^js, 
Brooklyn, N.Y. 

"This author, who is also the author of 'Betrayed 
Armenia' takes strong ground against the Turks, and hopes 
for the dissolution of the Turkish Empire. Her views from 
the Armenian standpoint, make instructive reading. The 
import of the book is that the Turkish Empire must be 
destroyed. " — Evening Transcript, Boston, Mass. 

" Powerfully written, imbued with love of humanity and 
the strong personal note which shows with what knowledge 
the writer speaks. "—Japan Gazette, Yokohama. 

"Deals with the political situation in a manner that 
reveals the student of politics, "—r//^ Japan Advertiser, 
Tokyo. 

IN HIS NAME 

"The restraint and dignity of form into which this 
presentation of Armenia's wrongs is cast, serves only to 
heighten the impression of horror in reading and of longing 
to do something to help after the book has been laid 
down." — Tlie Japan Evangelist, Tokyo. 

" Is calculated to stir the blood of the most indifferent 
and at the same time to raise the question of the guilt and 
responsibility of the Great Powers in connection with the 
unjust sufferings of minor pQop\QS,"--Thc Japan Advertiser, 
Tokyo. 

In His Name ; The Peace Problem ; 
Peace and Peace 

"These three boooks are an eloquent appeal to the 
thinking public for more intelligent study of conditions in 
Armenia. " — Woman's Missionary Friend, Boston, Mass. 

BETRAYED ARMENIA 

" If there is such a thing as a national conscience surely 
the Great Powers signatory to the Treaty of Berlin must 
blush for very shame when they remember how for years 
Turkey has disgraced civilization, in the belief, which 
events have shown were justified, that the so-called Concert 
of Europe was in reality non-effective, and little less than a 
sham. "—Japan Gazette, Yokohama. 





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